Recycling in Washington Ordeals

We recycle in Washington. I get reminded of this over and over and over again every time I'm back here, after committing some massive recycling faux pas.

Yesterday I put an empty milk carton in the regular garbage. This got me 5 Bad Recycler Demerits. This morning I emptied a peanut butter jar and put it in the regular garbage. 5 more Demerits.

It's all so confusing. Way more so than when I lived here. Then there was just one bin for newspapers and one bin for plastics and glass and one bin for normal garbage.

I'm not sure I'm all that clear on it yet, even after 10 days of trying to keep it all straight. Near as I can tell there is one big container for paper products, like newspapers and magazines. Another big container for yard waste, like grass clippings that could just stay on the grass after being clipped. That would seem a good recycling plan for grass. Then there is a big bin for bottles. I am not sure if the plastic bottles are separated from the glass ones or not.

I do know that my sister thoroughly examined the glass bin to make sure there were no illegal substances in there. Like used wine bottles.

I have been accused, at least twice, of putting bad stuff in the regular garbage. Apparently if you put a bottle in the regular garbage you can be arrested, fined and forced to do garbage pickup duty in parks and freeway medians.

The various bins get picked up on various days. This makes it even more confusing.

One strange thing is the regular garbage can is by far the smallest of all the bins. And it sits out in the alley where it gets picked up. The recycled stuff goes out on the street where it must be properly located in a correct position so it can be picked up by the auto-recycle bin picker upper thing. It's quite a feat of engineering.

In grocery stores you get asked that paper or plastic question and are greeted with scornful looks if you say you don't care.

There is a lot of eco-friendly packaging here. And novel ways to skip putting something in a bag. Like today at Target my sister bought something in a big box. The cashier attached some sort of tape thing to the box that functioned as a handle. It seemed very clever. But I had concerns about the use of plastic to make the handle.

Texas for the most part has a much simpler recycling method. The litter just gets tossed so that Mother Nature can use wind to recycle it to a new location.

Enough whining about recycling. Don't get me started on the ban here on talking on the cell phone while driving. It is just all to much to have to remember.